what do i need ?

[Ron McCorkell]

i have a vx-2100 and a hp lap top i can make dvd s but they are not clear what software would work best for me ??? thanks ron

[Don Bloom]

Ron,
The information you have given us is hardly enough to make a judgement, so let's start with the basics.
Start with the machine. How big is the HDD, how are you capturing the tape and where are you storing it, how much RAM in the machine, what are you using to edit and burn the DVDs and what are you watching them on to determine that they are not "clear". Also please define "clear" if you would. Are the images soft, look out of focus or blurred, do they look interlaced. Also what type of material are you shooting? Lots of fast moving action or mostly static or a combination. And what parts are not "clear"?
There are so many variables that with the info you have given us it would be impossible to determine just what you might need to do to improve the quality of your DVDS.
Anything else you can tell us would be helpful to us so we can try to help you get the results you want.
Don

[Ron McCorkell]

ok don heres what i do know my hp pavilion lap top ; power amd turion 64 mobile,processor ml-34 ( 1.8 ghz1mb l2 cache ,up to 1600 mhz system bus)
control microsoft windows xp media center edition ;
speed 1024 mb system memory 80gb harddrive and super multi 8x dvd +_ r/rw drive with double layer suport .
connection 54g 802.11 b/g wlan with 125hsm/ speedbooster support .
what i do is film deer in the wild and transfer from sony xv 2100 to lap top then use the windows movie maker once i do the drag and drop to form the video i then burn the dvd ; when i play the tape with camera on tv it looks good but when i play the dvd i made it just looks like it needs to be cleared up its not sharp dont know how else to call it


so can help now ? thanks ron

[Don Bloom]

Well I can try.
First let me state that I am not very familar with Windows Movie Maker so what I'm about to say is really more guesswork than true knowledge BUT...It sounds l;ike you might have 2 things going against you and while neither one might be a big deal combined it could be the root problem.
First, it appears that you are capturing to your system drive (no other drive to capture tape to). While this may not be a big problem with any system especially one that isn't really as powerful (1.8mhz processor) it could be that the system is 'choking on the footage when you go to burn. My first suggestion then is to buy a FW HDD at one of the big box stores. They are quite inexpensive now and you can get a 120 or a 200 or a 320 for not very much money.
On to WMM, again I'm not all that familar with it but it sounds like the encoding is killing you. So that might be either the codec it uses OR it could be the sheer size of the project you're encoding and with MPEG encoding size does matter. Generally about 2 hours is tops to maintain good quality.
The other thing that might be contributing to your probelm is the media itself. Good discs like TYs or Verbatim have always worked best for me and believe me, I've tried a lot of different brands.
Anyway, I hope this helps you out a little.
Good luck
Don

[Ron McCorkell]

thanks ron